


Loving Him Was Red

by folie_aplusieurs



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Curses, M/M, True Love's Kiss, Valentine's Day, modern fairytale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 17:20:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17791553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/folie_aplusieurs/pseuds/folie_aplusieurs
Summary: Touching him was like realizing all you ever wanted was right there in front of youMemorizing him was as easy as knowing all the words to your old favorite songFighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword and realizing there's no right answerRegretting him was like wishing you never found out that love could be that strong





	Loving Him Was Red

**Author's Note:**

> I broke up with someone today and this is still a bigger mess than I am. Thanks to hum-my-name for helping me form this idea into something that made sense

_ Patrick was only nine years old when he discovered how cruel the world can be. _

_ It didn’t happen in the way of crime and grief. Not in the way his parents always promised, whispering to each other about their baby when they thought he couldn’t hear. _

_ Cruelty didn’t take the form of harsh words or bruises, of bullies or criminals. No one had to die in order for Patrick to understand fear. No one had to have any malicious intent. _

_ Patrick was nine years old and his parents were out for Valentine’s Day. Patrick was nine years old and the coolest girl of the neighborhood, a teenage girl with multi-colored hair, showed up at the door as his sitter. His parents told Patrick to behave, to follow the rules. His parents asked for kisses on the cheek before they left. His parents asked him to stay safe. _

_ He did exactly as they said. _

_ The sitter, Samantha, was nice. She brought tarot cards and astrology books, telling Patrick’s future and teaching him simple sigils. She read his palm and interpreted his dreams. She was a wannabe witch, she said. She didn’t know as many spells as the rest in her coven but she was getting there, she said. And she told Patrick not to fret— she only ever used white magic.  _

_ Unlike others. _

_ Patrick didn’t understand— how could he? How could he see any danger when she described it like Superman or the X-Men? How could he shy away when she said he was one of the few who knew her secret? They had fun. They followed the rules. They stayed safe. _

_ Patrick left for bed later than usual. He didn’t fall asleep when he should have.  _

_ He heard Samantha shouting downstairs, a sound keeping him awake relentlessly. A sound he had to get to the bottom of. To protect Samantha— to be an X-Men or Superman. To save the day because those kinds of shouts are never the good kind. _

_ He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and watched as Samantha fought with another girl at the door. _

_ “You can’t leave me, I won’t let you!” The stranger shouted, eyes bright in anger and words simmering with hurt. “I love you!” _

_ “You don’t, though. You don’t love anyone,” Samantha said, eyes dull with tears and words freezing with indifference. “So I’m stopping this before we both get hurt.” _

_ “Hurt?” The other girl scoffed. “I’ll show you hurt, Sammy, if you don’t come back with me, right now.” _

_ “I can’t.” _

_ “You can.” _

_ “I  _ **_won’t_ ** _.” _

_ The stranger at the door fell quiet, Patrick pressed against the wall as she lifted her hands with the palms turned towards each other. She whispered meaningless words to herself, darker versions of those sigils beginning to glow on her skin.  _

_ “Fine,” she said, eyes landing on Samantha as blue lightning flew from her fingertips, the light filling the air as easily as the desolation. “Then you can learn what it means to be alone.” _

_ Like a thunderbolt, like a tidal wave, like the blinking of a nine-year-old’s eyes, the light flew from her hand and to Samantha’s chest, knocking the girl over with a scream. Sparks shot into the walls, into the door, and— when Patrick felt brave enough to pull his hands from his eyes— the stranger was gone. _

_ Samantha remained on the floor. Unmoving. Still sparking. _

_ Patrick ran to her side. He fell to his knees. He called her name. _

_ And Samantha reached for his arm. _

_ “I’m sorry,” she said, looking up with a crazed look in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Patrick, but I can’t let that girl kill me. I can’t!” _

_ A burning like a rash rushed into the skin Samantha’s hand touched, eating into Patrick’s nerves with the fury of a fire ant.  _

_ Slowly, Samantha pushed herself to her knees, towering over the cowering boy. _

_ “I have to pass it on,” she whispered. “Pass it onto somebody else. It’s the only way I can survive.” _

_ Her eyes met Patrick’s— sympathy, pity, sorrow, determination.  _

_ And she spoke. _

_ “Ten years, Patrick. I can give you ten years. That’s longer than I would have had with this curse so don’t cry, please, don’t cry. You’ll have ten more years to live. Isn’t that long enough?” Her words landed on Patrick like meteors, like missiles, like fallen dinosaurs unaware of the damage their carcasses would do. Tears followed the slope of Patrick’s cheek. Pleas and sobs followed the path of his tongue. Samantha reached with her other hand, covering his mouth and increasing his fears. “You have a chance, Patrick! Because I have no ill-will in my heart for you, you have a chance I would not. If your true love kisses you before the end of your twentieth Valentine’s Day, you will wake again. You will live. The curse will be no more. That is my gift to you.” _

_ A gift. She released him at last, lingering electricity sparking between them and working into Patrick’s veins. He shrieked. He cried. _

_ Samantha frowned and reached out once more.  _

_ “No!” Patrick shouted. And blue energy radiated from his lips. _

_ Samantha pulled away, an emotion other than resignation and apology filling her eyes at last. Horror and realization. They only worsened Patrick’s own panic. _

_ “I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I’ve made a mistake.” _

_ The most horrible feeling Patrick had ever had in his life washed over him. _

_ Samantha stood, stepping back with wide eyes— sadness pooling in them like the stars at night. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to. Your… Your lips, Patrick. The curse was aimed for my heart, that was its home, but I was touching your lips. This is where your curse resides. This is where its power will stay until the ten years have passed. Unless… Unless you kiss anybody, Patrick. If you kiss someone, if you so much as brush your lips against their skin, the curse will pass on to them. Be careful with this, please. Give away the curse if you must but… but don’t let such a sin change who you are. Don’t become like me.” _

_ Patrick lifted a hand to his lips, feeling nothing to prove such a power rested within them. Patrick looked into Samantha’s eyes, seeing nothing to prove this was all a joke.  _

_ Samantha bent, pressed two fingers against his head. She muttered an ancient sounding word— or perhaps it was just gibberish— and whispered for Patrick to sleep. _

_ Patrick blinked and darkness fell. _

 

_ He awoke to his parents’ voices. He awoke to arms around him as he rested on the floor.  _

_ He awoke to the memory of Samantha’s curse.  _

_ His instinct was to throw himself into his mother’s arms, to cry about what happened and pray she believed him. His instinct was to sob and beg his father to make things right. His instinct was to be the nine-year-old kid he was— lost and frightened and alone. _

_ Instead, he lifted his hand to his lips and felt death within them.  _

_ Who would believe a curse such as this, when told in a nine-year-old’s tone? _

_ And why should he risk his lips against his mother’s cheek? Why should he place his loved ones in such danger? _

_ Young and afraid— still new to the world and just learning of the cruelties within it— Patrick told his parents he was fine and ran to his room alone. _

_ Alone, he tucked himself under the cartoon characters of his blankets. Alone, he held stuffed animals close to his chest. Alone, he hoped the glow of his nightlight would keep him safe. _

_ Alone, he cried himself to sleep. _

~

_ Like all fairy tales, like all stories of curses and lost hope, there was an interlude. There were years Patrick would rather forget, days of wanting to claw the curse free from his lips, splitting them with teeth and nails until those lips— those horrid lips— were raw and red with blood. Those were the days that sent him to therapy. Those were the years that drove his parents away. _

_ That was the life that drove everyone away. _

_ Patrick began to wish he was as cruel as people seemed to believe he could be. He wished that pushing away his boyfriend in freshman year meant he had no heart. He wished his parents’ and therapists’ assessments of antisocial behavior were true because then there would be a way to work through this. There would be something sane to point his fingers at. _

_ He wished he was cruel. Because his kindness, his love for the world, turned him away from it. _

_ How could he say he loved the world when his kiss would bring death to whoever it touched? How could he say he was kind if he smiled with death’s knife?  _

_ How could he find his true love if he couldn’t even bring himself to pretend he could fall in love? _

_ Because he tried. For years, he tried to pretend love didn’t mean kisses or intimacy. He tried to pretend his true love would appear, ready to wait years for a first kiss. _

_ But there were moments where pretending felt too real. There were centimeters of air left between lips before he’d remember. There were smiles brushing against jackets and shirts and hair. And Patrick would have to pull away. He’d have to hide. _

_ He cannot love the world without condemning it. _

_ And Patrick, the perfect fairy tale prince, condemned himself first. _

_ He’d rather die alone than pass this pain on. He’d rather never kiss and know he was good than spread hurt like a disease to someone whose only crime was knowing him. _

_ He’d rather keep his curses to himself. _

_ But don’t the best of fairy tales have a wonderful way of twisting and turning plans? _

~

Despite the morbidity it holds for him, Patrick’s always romanticized Valentine’s Day. Under the oppression of the curse, the sheer  _ weight _ of his own personal expiration date, he’s found it therapeutic to yearn for something so normal. Tearing up over sappy rom-coms gives him a relationship to root for. Grinning at bouquets helps him forget about the flowers that may decorate his own grave some day.

In fourteen days, to be exact. He’s kept a calendar since the beginning of the year, marking off dates with a shrinking sense of dread in his heart with each X. He expected he’d feel afraid but, really, ten years gave him time to accept his fate. It gave him time to prepare.

Fourteen days until he dies— no use sugar-coating it, this isn’t Sleeping Beauty or Snow White— and he’s stopped caring for the fear that used to reside in his head. His nightmares have faded into nothing. His emotional outbursts have all but disappeared.

His parents didn’t argue when he rejected college, allowing him to stay home because the therapists like to say he’s abnormal for his age— though, isn’t every nineteen-year-old abnormal? — and his parents believe they can support him with whatever struggles he has. They believed it when he said he didn’t want to start something he didn’t know how to finish. Which was true. Except for the part where he knows why he would never finish his courses. Why he would never find a future waiting for him there.

The last time his parents argued with him was on New Year’s Eve, the last time Patrick allowed himself to fight against his situation. His last year had come to a close, the finish line was racing for him and he couldn’t stop it. His parents hadn’t understood the sour mood, they’d begged for answers then shouted when he couldn’t give anything other than the same excuses. He was tired, he was overwhelmed, he was upset with something they did, he was upset with himself. 

They shouted and told him to try smiling more. 

Patrick hasn’t smiled since the sarcastic one he forced at their words, his greatest attempt at mocking their unintentional cruelties. He didn’t plan on smiling at all for them for the rest of his life— not as dramatic as it had sounded in his head, considering he had just a little under two months left.

Here, though, in a Wal-Mart with his arms resting on a bacteria-infested cart filled with his mom’s grocery items, Patrick smiles at a small stuffed owl with a heart embroidered onto its stomach. Its wings fold over the bottom, the word ‘ _ who’ _ sewn across them to form the phrase  _ I Love Who? _ Patrick unfolds the wings, revealing “you” on the bottom of the heart.

_ I Love You! _

It’s absolutely adorable and he entertains himself, allowing a few moments of fantasy where, in another universe, he needn’t worry of curses and the kiss of death. In another world, in his perfect world, he would have no reason to stop and stare at such an object because someone out there would care enough to buy him one every Valentine’s Day. He’d never have to stop grinning.

He’s contemplating buying it for himself— he’s dying soon, no need to save his cash— when someone scoffs haughtily beside him.

“Dude,” a voice says in disbelief. “Why are you smiling?”

Patrick pulls his hand back from the wing, dropping the  _ who _ back in place. He doesn’t dare move, hoping against hopes that the stranger wasn’t speaking to him.

“Excuse me?” His voice is just as astonished as the one he had heard.

“You heard me,” is the response he receives. “There’s no need to smile at it like that. Everyone knows they just make that shit for the money and free promotion the company gets from couples on Instagram. You don’t look like the stupid type but maybe you should consider that not everything is as sweet as it seems.”

As if Patrick doesn’t already know.

He turns with a fire in place of his smile and prepares to fight the asshole speaking to him. 

He’s greeted with the most impossible boy he’s ever seen. 

Dark hair straightened to hide half his face. Smudges of makeup under his eyes and a cocky grin on his irritating lips. A red hoodie hangs off his frame with practiced nonchalance, meant to look perfectly messed up but really just appearing unzipped. Tight black jeans hug his legs and horrendous purple shoes cover his feet. Patrick’s lips twist in a sneer. He may be shopping for groceries in a baggy t-shirt and ratty old cap but at least he doesn’t look like he’s trying too hard.

But then the guy before him smirks— fucking  _ smirks _ — and it all goes straight to hell.

Patrick’s never seen a smirk so devilishly handsome before and it’s nowhere near fair. If he doesn’t move away, he’s sure the sight will smother him and finally snuff out the fighting spirit still coursing through his veins. He’s had exes with smirks and smiles of their own, boys and girls who thrived on pretension and cockiness. It matched Patrick’s own version of snobbery quite well until the moments where Patrick had to hide from the passion they all seemed to feel. Those relationships, those close call kisses and brutal breakups, nearly smothered him before the curse could do its job.

And now this boy’s smirk is making him feel just as trapped.

“What? No words?” The stranger asks, a hand on his hip. “See, even you know it. Valentine’s Day is overrated. No one appreciates flowers and chocolates anymore.”

Patrick’s snapped back into reality like a rubber band that’s suddenly been let go.

Flowers. Chocolates. Valentine’s cliches. 

Sweets and cards and stuffed animals.

Everything Patrick never had the chance to partake in— everything he never will.

For a moment, he sees red.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, asshole,” he snaps. “I’d appreciate it if I ever had the chance to so just… just shut up.”

It’s anticlimactic but it does the job, leaving the boy with a dropped jaw as Patrick yanks the cart around and heads for the check-out line. He’s shaking before he’s halfway there, swallowing down the lump in his throat. He can’t start crying now. He’s never cried about this stupid curse. He’s accepted his fate.

So how dare this  _ jerk _ come up and remind Patrick of all the things he’ll never have? He’ll never have someone show up with a gift meant solely to make him happy. He’ll never have the chance to love someone enough to do the same. His Valentine’s Days have been nothing but reminders of when he was nine and too young and dumb to understand what a curse is. Oh, he’d been afraid. He’d been fucking terrified. 

But he hadn’t realized the severity until he had less than two months left and no more holidays to look forward to. No more family vacations or birthdays or Valentine’s Days. And the worst part about that last one? Not only are there no more— there were never any, to begin with. Too startled, too anxious, to empty to partake.

So forgive him, Mr. Eyeliner-And-Cockiness, if he wants to pretend for just a second.

The cart stops moving with a jerk and Patrick tears his gaze up to see what he’s hit.

His concern falls away into disgust.

“I’m sorry,” Eyeliner says, his hands on the cart to keep it from going any further. “I wasn’t thinking and I have a good excuse as for why. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Patrick yanks the cart from the boy’s hands with a growl. “Get the fuck out of my way.” 

The guy lets go and Patrick rushes past, nearly running. It doesn’t stop the stranger from speed-walking to keep up with him.

“It’s just that I’m getting over a bad breakup and the thought of anything romantic kind of makes me feel sick right now. I’m just being a bitter idiot, really. Don’t hate me.” He holds his hand out, apparently oblivious to the fact Patrick’s ignoring him. “Here, let’s start over. I’m Pete and think that Valentine’s Day can be cute under the right circumstances.”

Patrick stops to take a deep breath— in with the good, out with the really fucking irritating— before replying.

“Right circumstances?” He still ignores Pete’s smile.

“Yeah!” Pete exclaims. “I’m sure it’s way more enjoyable if you actually have a date, right?”

This, at least, earns him a scoff as Patrick starts pushing the cart once more, this time at a much more reasonable pace.

“You know, I’ve never had a date for Valentine’s. You don’t need one to appreciate the holiday,” he says. Pete raises an eyebrow, that awful smirk from before making a reappearance.

“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” he says. “I just thought someone as cute as you would have one.”

Patrick refuses to give into the compliment, eyes narrowing as he starts placing things on the conveyor for the cashier. “See, here’s what’s not gonna happen. You do not get to pick a fight with me and then try flirting. That’s not how anything works.”

Pete shrugs, placing a separator between Patrick’s dozens of groceries and his own pack of gum. “Worth a try. Hey, what’s your name, by the way?”

Patrick really shouldn’t answer. Something in Pete’s smile pulls it free from his tongue anyway. “Patrick.”

“Cool name,” Pete says. Patrick doesn’t respond with any more than a “hmm” and he’s blessed with a silence that lasts long enough for him to fill his arms with more than a handful of heavy grocery bags.

The muteness doesn’t last nearly as long as it should, though, and, soon, Pete’s back at his side as they exit the store. “Where’s your car?”

Patrick purses his lips. “Don’t have one.”

“You can’t drive?” Pete asks. Patrick doesn’t meet his gaze.

“Never saw the point.”  _ Can’t exactly drive when you’re dead, can you? _

“Well, in that case, you want help carrying bags to your place? Those look pretty heavy and I owe it to you after being such a dick.”

Patrick opens his mouth to object but the words fail to form. When was the last time a cute— only cute, Patrick decides, now that he’s admitted he was being a dick— boy offered to walk him home? Patrick doesn’t know if he’ll ever have this sort of chance again so…

“Sure,” he says, handing over a few bags to Pete. “But only because you know you were being rude.”

Pete’s smile is apologetic but still brings a blush to Patrick’s cheeks. “I’m not usually like that, I swear.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Come on, my house is this way.” Patrick begins the walk back and Pete follows, bouncing with each step like an overeager puppy. 

Pete talks enough for the two of them, every other phrase from his mouth some kind of a flirt. Patrick almost wants to be flattered but the facts— the ones reminding him how little time he has left— keep him from reading too much into them.

Nothing’s going to happen.

Patrick’s stubborn silence and Pete’s eventual quietness when he gets the hint is enough to convince him things will stay that way.

~

But then Pete shows up at Patrick’s house two days later, while Patrick’s parents are at work and Patrick himself is busy moping about crossing off another X. February third. What is that? Eleven more days? Ten? He’s not quite sure when the curse will kill him so he’s given up trying to understand.

Pete’s face when he opens the door that morning, though, is a welcome distraction.

“You’ve never had a Valentine’s?” He sounds so appalled, Patrick’s very nearly duped into believing Pete was the one defending the date a few days ago at the store.

“Um, no? I said that, right?” Patrick wipes some sleep from his eyes, wishing he had changed from his pajamas before answering the door. Sweats hang onto his hips at a dangerously low angle and his oversized shirt makes up for any skin that might have shown. Compared to Pete’s tight t-shirt and jeans, though, he might as well be wearing a onesie. “How the hell did you remember that?”

Pete doesn’t answer, face falling. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Um.” Patrick’s face scrunches up. “I’m sorry?”

“No,  _ I’m  _ sorry. Damn, no wonder you were smiling at that owl,” Pete says. Patrick takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes. It’s too early for this.

“It’s actually really fine? I haven’t really had a reason to celebrate it since I was, like, nine so I’m used to doing nothing. Now, do you want to explain the real reason you’re here or—” There’s a flurry of motion and Patrick’s eyes open. “Oh.”

Silence takes over. 

Pollen and silence.

“I wasn’t kidding when I said you were cute,” Pete says, blushing behind the bouquet of roses in his hand. “So it’s pretty much a crime no one’s given you a Valentine’s yet.”

“Valentine’s Day isn’t today, though,” Patrick says, staring dumbly at the flowers before him. Pete shakes them a bit, waiting for Patrick to take them before continuing.

“Valentine’s is in a few days so I’m gonna woo you for the real thing by giving you a mini one every day. If you’re okay with it, that is.” 

Patrick’s cheeks burn red. “Really?”

Pete grins, the shy look strangely appealing in Patrick’s eyes. “Really.”

Patrick looks down at the flowers in his hands. A dozen red roses, wrapped nicely with the stems cut and ready for water. It’s climactic and cliche. It’s so stupid.

But it's also for him.

“I think I like it so far,” he says, his voice a mere whisper as the flowers smile up at him. “I’m okay with it for now.”

Pete sighs in relief. 

Patrick merely shuts his eyes and takes a deep whiff of the flowers. 

He doesn’t expect more than this, not even when Pete invites him for a walk in the park— a walk Patrick has to decline as a result of his allergic reaction to the flowers. An allergic reaction that just so happened to include teary eyes and a choked up throat as he placed it in the nicest vase he could find. 

He doesn’t expect more, not even when Pete promises to keep this up until Valentine’s. To be entirely honest, he doesn’t care if he gets more.

The sight of those roses on the table—  _ his  _ roses on the table— is more than he ever expected he would have.

~

On February fourth, Patrick wakes with nausea that urges him to stay in bed and pretend he doesn’t need to mark off a date. He doesn’t need to admit another day has passed. He doesn’t need to be strong.

For the first few moments of the morning, he closes his eyes, hands pressed tightly over his face as if he can keep the curse from spreading through his body the way he’s felt it do for years, and gags. 

Ten more days. 

Ten more days.

Maybe he can just sleep for ten more days. And then forever.

“Patrick! There’s a boy here for you!”

His dad’s tone is cautious. It has every right to be— when was the last time Patrick even seemed to have a friend? But Patrick’s thoughts are even more so.

It’s Pete. He knows it is. But why? He couldn’t have meant what he said yesterday. Things like that don’t happen in Patrick’s life.

Still, he drags himself from the bed and dresses just a bit more graciously than he usually would. 

Pete’s inside, standing awkwardly by the door by the time Patrick gets downstairs. Patrick’s dad stands beside him, a confused smile painting his face.

“He said he’s a friend?” The questioning tone does nothing for Patrick’s pride.

“Y-yeah, kinda,” Patrick says. He thinks about mentioning the flowers but bites down on the words, keeping the sweetness to himself as Pete smiles at him.

Patrick smiles back, though it’s matched with an appraising scan of the hoodie Pete’s worn each time Patrick’s seen him. Pete merely pulls the sleeves of his hoodie lower, sticking his tongue out at Patrick when Patrick’s dad turns away.

“So you boys have plans?” 

Pete answers before Patrick can. “Yes!”

“Yes?” Patrick raises an eyebrow. 

“I promised Patrick I’d do something for him,” he says, eyes on Patrick as he speaks. “So I came to see if he’d like to go to the mall with me today.”

“The mall?” Patrick and his dad speak at the same time. Pete nods.

“The mall. It fits with the theme. Trust me.”

Ah, yes. The theme. The Valentine’s Day spectacular, or so Patrick’s imagined it. 

He knows, right away, he should say no. The sickness he felt earlier is proof enough of why. Worst case scenario, he ends up in a position where his lips end up on Pete, a curse shifting between them like breaths. Best case scenario, he never has a reason to be so close and he goes to the curse with tears in his eyes over lost chances.

No more tears, he promised himself. No more.

Nausea still rests in his stomach like a sickness waiting to take him over. His head spins when he looks at his dad to gauge his reaction.

He needs a distraction.  The universe owes him a distraction.

“Can I go?” He asks. His dad shrugs, though that confusion still remains.

“You’re old enough to decide,” he says. “Just call if you’re going to be late.”

The universe points to Pete. 

“Alright, then,” Patrick says, wearing wariness in his voice. “What’s the plan?”

Pete waits until they’re outside, walking towards his car, before smiling at Patrick. “You ever gone to the chocolate shop at the mall?”

“That sounds hopelessly cliche,” Patrick says. Pete nods solemnly.

“Oh, it’s every cliche,” he says, getting into the car. “But that’s why we’re going.”

Patrick doesn’t know Pete. He only knows he’s going to die in a multitude of days. He should run back inside before anything happens— be it his lips on Pete’s skin or his heart on his sleeve. He has no right to be out here. It’s not what he planned.

But it is a cliche. 

And, at the mall, sharing a box of truffles next to the screaming kids running up and down the escalator, Patrick loves every second of it. 

~

Patrick learns very quickly that Pete is a man of his word.

The doorbell rings at noon on February fifth, while Patrick’s busy drawing lines like tarmac across the calendar’s date. He’s already dressed, already hoping the routine doesn’t fail.

He opens the door and Pete falls to his knees before him.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” He begins, arms tossed out extravagantly. “Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”

Patrick’s lips— cursed and bitter— take on a sarcastic curve.

“What? No flowers or chocolates?” He asks. Pete frowns, still on his knees before Patrick— a sight Patrick would rather not think of right now. “You didn’t even write that.”

“It was a last minute idea,” Pete says. “And all my poems are way too depressing to read out loud.”

“Huh,” Patrick says, leaning against the doorframe, his tone full of the quiet command to  _ impress me. _ “Do you know the rest?”

Pete’s eyes take on a bashful shade, head tilting with an embarrassed grin. “Do you?”

It’s not a challenge but anything can be a distraction if it’s said in the right tone. Patrick grins, his own version of Pete’s cocky leer, and rests a hand over his heart in an overdramatic manner. 

“Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” His hand falls to his side, his sarcastic smile falling with it when he sees Pete’s excited grin. “It’s a pretty cliche poem, dude, and I— Why are you smiling like that?”

Pete’s eyes are bright as he pushes himself up to his feet, at last, brushing unseen particles off his knees. “You know Shakespeare?”

“I have a lot of free time.”

“Alright,” Pete says, a true challenge appearing in voice with these words now. “Okay, then, scholar, what’s your favorite?”

“One forty-five,” Patrick says wryly, crossing his arms across his chest. Pete’s eyebrows draw down lower but he says nothing more on the topic. Patrick hurries along to another topic. “So, your plans?”

“Would it be incredibly stupid if I admit that’s all I had for the day?” Pete asks, the words framed by a smile. A smile, Patrick knows, Pete must know the power of. No one tosses around such an appealing action unless they know what they’re doing with it. It’s not fair in the slightest.

“Well, in the rare case that you came to your senses, I was planning on playing video games all day.” He steps back, a little upward curl forming in the corner of his mouth. “Wanna join? I only have one remote but we can take turns mid-battle and pretend the teamwork is romantic.”

Pete’s smile becomes a smirk. Patrick turns his back and leads Pete inside before it’s fully formed.

~

Pete doesn’t show up on February sixth. 

The house is lonely when Patrick wakes, his parents at work and friends non-existent. It’s dark, his thick curtains pulled tight across the sun. His door’s shut. His room is silent.

Patrick lies in bed and breathes.

The darkness and silence make it easier to feel the curse curling beneath his skin, a series of snakes playing hide-and-seek with his thoughts. They feel different, though, today. They feel restless, playing the seeker when Patrick’s only ever felt them hide.

He shuts his eyes and grits his teeth, choking back sobs he swore he’d never share.

That doesn’t make any of this better.

Patrick’s pulse races through his ears as the curse consumes his mind, casting shadows and dark grins across his thoughts. His hands shake and form fists as his thoughts scream that IT’S NOT FAIR.

He’s alone but the image of friendship the past few days had tricked him otherwise, if only for a second. He’s nothing more than this curse, this spell within his lips. He’s only the death that will come in a week’s time.

He should stand and mark off this date, should perform his ritual of pretending he’s okay with any of it.

Not pretending.

He is okay.

He has to be.

No one else knows. He has no one to be strong for him. He has no one to say they’ll protect him. He has no one to say they care.

He’s done this for himself for ten years.

He can last one more week.

 

When he wakes again, unaware he’d fallen asleep, it’s to the sound of his phone buzzing on the floor. A message, he knows. Probably from his mom or dad, checking up to see if he did any chores. He entertains himself with the knowledge he won’t have many chores to do for long.

When he finally pulls the phone to his face and clicks on the message, it’s from a number he added a few days ago.

The message is a picture of a Valentine’s Day display at the front of a store, cartoon characters saying cheesy phrases about love and hearts. At the bottom, Pete added an apology for his absence. His excuse being he had to run some errands but, don’t worry, he’s still thinking of Patrick.

_ pretend its a long distance thing ok? _

Patrick refuses to admit to himself that he’s smiling.

~

One week: fear doesn’t rise as easily as it should.

Patrick knows it’s only because he’s distracted by ringing in his ears and the dull headache he wakes with. He can blame it on dehydration— he hadn’t left bed the day before, texting and calling Pete as if meant something— but the curse is content to let him know it’s not.

The curse, Patrick’s found, is a living organism. A parasite. A beast. It preys on him, night and day, stalking each step and grinning at each instance of panic. It waits— and it tells him it waits— for those ten years to be up. It waits for Patrick’s eyes to shut so it can properly set to work making sure they never have the chance to open again.

These minor aches are nothing more than reminders.

 

And Pete’s smile when he takes Patrick on a picnic in the backyard, under the shade of the tree Patrick used to climb when he was younger… it’s nothing more than a distraction.

 

It is a nice one, though, as far as distractions go.

~

February eighth is the smile of a demon held painfully at bay. Patrick barely wishes to wake, his curse listing every reason his waking now will not matter later. With the headache prodding at the inside of his skull each time he breathes, he sees no reason to disagree.

Until he hears a soft breath from the floor beside him.

Patrick’s pity party pauses long enough for him to glance over the side of the bed. Long enough for him to see someone else sprawled across the floor.

Pete.

Patrick has no time to question before his door creaks open, his mom poking her head in with a frown.

“Oh,” she says. “You’re awake.”

She’s so entirely unenthused by the fact, Patrick actually witnesses his self-pity multiply. Won’t she wish she’ll be able to say those exact words in one week’s time?

Guilt gnaws at Patrick’s pulse. He swallows it down.

“I don’t remember falling asleep,” he says, using her same monotonous sound. She raises an eyebrow— disbelief.

“Your friend said you passed out while hanging out in the backyard yesterday.” Disappointment fills her eyes while dread enters Patrick’s heart. When the curse hits, will he see it coming? Will he recognize the feeling of the fall or will it be like yesterday, a simple slip into the dark? He can’t bring himself to speak as his mom rests accusations atop his pain. “I’ve told you not to stay up so late, Patrick. You can’t be falling asleep throughout the day. It’s just not healthy.”

Patrick’s voice is choked when he mutters an, “Okay.” His mom nods, her eyes falling onto Pete with an expression Patrick can’t read in the dull dark.

“He seems like a nice boy,” she says. “It’s good to see you hanging out with other people again.”

Again. As if he’s ever done as much before.

When his mom is gone and the door is shut and Patrick is dropping his head back onto the pillow, Pete wakes.

Or, he pretends to wake. His coltish actions, smiling as he crawls onto Patrick’s bed, has the younger doubting Pete was ever asleep at all.

Patrick’s lips twitch in favor of the distraction.

“You’re acting way too comfortable considering we just met at a store a few days ago,” Patrick says, tugging the blanket over his head before Pete can turn his wolfish smirk on him. “Like, do you ever take the step from acquaintance to friend or do you just jump straight to fuck buddy?”

“Only when they offer,” Pete retorts, yanking Patrick’s blanket back down. “And I think sharing a bed is very important for establishing trust early on in a relationship.”

This has Patrick’s attention. “Relationship?”

He feels Pete tense, though his smile remains in his voice.

“Yeah,” he says, the word awkward and unsure. “Or do you mean these past few days haven’t been dates and I’ve gotten it all wrong?”

Patrick rolls over onto his back, eyes focused on the ceiling as he thinks.

“I—”

“Because I thought the flowers made it really obvious but if you needed a spelled out proposal for courtship—”

“No,” Patrick interrupts. “I… I don’t need that. I’m just… Yeah, I’m just processing right now.”

Pete’s breath skips. “Okay, then.”

“Yeah.”

Courtship.

Dates.

Relationship.

He’s known Pete for maybe a week— and he has only a week left— and they’re somehow in a relationship?

Huh.

Patrick should put a stop to this. Now.

Who does Pete think he is, anyway, bursting into Patrick’s life with a handful of flowers and the assumption this makes them a couple? What gives him the right to ruin all of Patrick’s plans of dying, sad and alone, in his room?

Well, when he puts it like that to himself, maybe having someone around to make him smile won’t be so bad. It’s selfish but Patrick’s been pushing people away for the better part of a decade. Can’t he be selfish for just one week?

“Why are you smiling?” Pete asks. Patrick turns to look at him, suddenly aware of the small grin lighting up his face. The grin painted on his horrid, awful lips.

“Because,” he says. “Apparently I have a boyfriend now.”

He doesn’t see Pete smile but he hears it easily when he laughs.

“Can that count for today’s Valentine’s Day thing? You seemed sick yesterday so I don’t want to drag you around…” Pete pauses, pursing his lips before letting his hand land on Patrick’s head. “You said you had a headache yesterday. If I act all cool and doting, can that count?”

It sounds like a joke and Patrick’s prepared to call him on it. But then Pete curls his fingers in, nails dragging gently across his scalp, and Patrick’s only response is a pleasured sigh.

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “Yeah, that totally fucking counts.”

Pete grins and performs the action again.

“Good.”

~

On February ninth, Patrick’s faced with one of the hardest questions of his life:

Does Pete Wentz have a hidden master plan for everything he does, or does he just go along with everything life gives him?

On one hand, there’s no way he’s put together enough to plan every tiny detail out. Patrick’s seen his outfits, okay, and no one who coordinates red pants with yellow shoes should be capable of coordinating entire conversations days in advance. He has the attention span of a child and the enthusiasm of a puppy and none of that adds up to being a mastermind. At least, not in any book Patrick’s read. Most likely, he flashes that smile every chance he gets, convincing the universe to bend to his will just to keep that smile shining. And everything ends up perfect.

Though, Patrick recalls, Pete never seems quite surprised and, this time, things are adding up far too perfectly.

“Hey, not to force you to do anything,” Pete says, still kneeling before Patrick— a favored position of his, Patrick supposes, “but this is the part where you start crying and fall into my arms while saying ‘yes’ repeatedly.”

Patrick blinks. 

Oh, right.

Pete was in the middle of proposing. 

“Hmm, I’m not very big on tears,” Patrick says, pressing a finger against his chin. “Is that a requirement?”

“Patrick,” Pete says, a waning amount of patience in his words. “I don’t care what you do but just give me a reason to get off this floor.”

Patrick laughs. “It was your idea.” Still, before Pete’s pout can grow much larger, Patrick puts on the same dramatics from his partial Shakespeare recitation and tosses a hand out. “Oh my god! Peter! I thought you’d never ask!”

Pete laughs, amused and relieved. 

And puts the onion ring around Patrick’s finger.

“I was waiting for the right time,” Pete says. Patrick shakes his head fondly.

“And nothing says romance better than two o'clock on a Thursday.” He hums to himself, taking a bite from the ring hanging from his finger. It’s not his favorite food but Pete had been smiling so wide… “Oh, god, get up off the floor, you idiot. The employees are staring.”

“Only because it’s not every day they see a proposal,” Pete murmurs, shoving himself to his feet and back into the both across from Patrick anyway. 

“Yeah, because they work at Burger King,” Patrick says. “And because you’re a horrible actor.”

“Proposals are a huge Valentine’s cliche,” Pete argues. “What kind of romantic would I be if I didn’t propose? You may have a proposal later in life but, I assure you, you’ll never forget the onion ring I gave you. Or the speech. I took time writing that!”

“You described me as being semi-sweet and I still don’t know if it was an insult.” Patrick rolls his eyes. “And, speaking of proposals, is it just a happy coincidence you used that exact word yesterday? Or did you actually plan this out?”

“Now, when did I ever say anything about proposals?”

“When you—” Patrick stops. He glares, tearing off the rest of the onion ring and throwing it at Pete’s smirk. “Oh, fuck off, you did plan this!”

“Maybe I’m just blessed,” Pete says, earning yet another scoff from Patrick. “Either way, doesn’t it make you wonder what else I might have planned already?”

Patrick doesn’t respond with words, choosing to laugh derisively instead. Choosing to ignore the way his stomach twists with nerves at Pete’s smirk.

Or maybe it’s just the curse acting up again.

~

“I assume it’s okay if I sit closer to you?”

“If you need a better spot to reach then—”

“No, I just kinda really want to sit closer to you.”

“You want to… Okay, sure.”

Pete grins— sunlight’s edge, a blade of glass— and shifts across the carpet until his side is flush against Patrick’s.

“There,” he says. “Now I can reach. Because that’s obviously the first conclusion someone should draw when asked by their significant other if they can sit closer together.”

“... I see you smiling, asshole. Stop teasing, it’s not funny.”

“If it’s not funny, then why are you smiling?”

Patrick bites down hard on his lip and turns his head away. “Just finish setting it up.”

“Yes, sir!”

Pete works in silence— well, the Pete Wentz kind of silence where every other second is assaulted and assailed by swears and endearing commentary— and Patrick allows himself to glance back over, grinning at the sight of Pete struggling with the fondue machine.

Because, Pete had promised, fondue is very romantic.

Patrick’s not quite certain how romantic the mini-marshmallows and melting chocolate on his floor are but it’s time with Pete. It’s time to smile.

It’s time to forget about how soon the real Valentine’s Day will be here.

“So why haven’t you celebrated the actual Valentine’s before?” Pete asks, apparently reading Patrick’s mind and causing the younger to jump. Pete looks over for a moment, eyebrow raised, and Patrick takes a breath to regain his composure.

“No huge reason,” he says— lies. “I guess it was never a big deal for me.”

More lies.

“And yet you smile at toys for it in the store.”

Patrick shrugs weakly. “I can appreciate it. I think that’s what I said. Besides, I never, like, had any dates? I mean, I have dated but… but never for very long, you know?”

Pete frowns, glancing at Patrick even as his hands continue to fiddle with the heated machine. It’s dangerous and Patrick should scold him for not paying attention but, somehow, he can’t look away from those seeking eyes.

“That’s not right,” he says. “You deserve to have had a Valentine’s with someone who cares about you and if the other people you dated left before that then fuck them. They were idiots.”

Idiots for leaving someone who couldn’t kiss them? Idiots for leaving someone who couldn’t explain why? Pete’s reasoning seems faulty but Patrick merely shrugs.

“It was all my fault,” Patrick says, though his cheeks burn when Pete’s frown deepens. “Seriously! I, like… It’s hard to explain but it all makes sense. Trust me.”

Pete scoffs. “Unless you were murdering puppies, I highly doubt I can trust that anyone would have a good reason for leaving you alone on Valentine’s.”

Patrick bites his lip but releases just as quick, a sharp jolt going through his being at the action.

“You’d be surprised.”

“I—”

“Besides!” Patrick cuts in before Pete can embarrass him further with such intense statements on his behalf. “If they had given me a Valentine’s Day, you wouldn’t have any reason to set my house on fire with the fondue kit, right?”

Finally, Pete’s frown becomes a smirk. “Oh, ye of little faith…”

“Yes, me of little faith,” Patrick says. “But, seriously, don’t set any fires. That’d be an awful way to go.”

“So you’re the expert on best deaths, then?” Pete asks, unaware of the chills it sends down Patrick’s spine.

“Well, I have my ideas. Something more cinematic. Fairy tale, like, if you will.” A joke Pete doesn’t get. 

“Very well,” Pete says, backing away from the kit and grinning as the chocolate begins to melt. “I promise not to kill you before Valentine’s Day.”

“Great,” Patrick says, rolling his eyes and moving his hands to between his legs to hide their trembles. “That’s reassuring.”

“It should be.” Pete nudges into Patrick with a smile, one that has Patrick shaking his head and hiding blazing cheeks. “Hey, can I ask what the calendar’s for?”

And Patrick’s smile falls.

“The what?” He asks though he knows exactly what Pete means.

“Your calendar.” Pete nods towards the one hanging on the wall over Patrick’s desk. Oversized and cat-themed. “I’m all for organization but you’ve said before that you don’t have any organized plans ever. And you could always check the date on your phone. So what’s the deal with it?”

Patrick pauses, something in him aching to move closer to Pete. Something smarter telling him to move away.

“I don’t know,” he says, fingers beginning to shake. “I just guess I like to know how much time I have. Um, in any given week, I suppose. In case something does come up.”

“Okay, I guess that makes sense,” Pete says in a way that proves it makes no sense at all. “But it’s still redundant. You and I, Trickster? We’ve got all the time in the world. The magic of dating… it feels like forever if done right.”

Feels like forever. 

Those words read like a lie as they fill Patrick’s senses, sound like an already broken promise. Patrick’s hands, trembling from the fear of such a falsehood, dig into the carpet.

Feels like forever.

That feels like a lie.

But…

Patrick looks to Pete, looks to his sunshine smile and stormcloud eyes— filled by thunderous emotion and lightning bright promise. The shade of sunrise through whiskey on a summer’s day. The promise of forever, the happy ending hidden behind a lock Patrick’s been dragging his nails across for ten years. Broken and bleeding.

Pete smiles like his lips are the key.

Without meaning, without thinking, Patrick leans into Pete and buries himself in his neck, breathing in the only scent he’s sensed this week. Sweat and cologne. Nothing extraordinary.

Nothing extraordinary but every piece Pete.

Every piece something Patrick didn’t know he needed. Something he didn’t know he wanted.

Something he now craves more than the breath in his lungs.

“Then give me a forever,” Patrick breathes, a shattered whisper in the dull lights of his room. The curtains are drawn and the door is closed but the nightlight from so long ago still beams across the air. “Give me a forever before Valentine’s even dares to show its face.”

Pete smiles. Pete promises.

But Patrick can only beg that he’s heard every unspoken word.

_ Give me what I can never have _

_ Give me what these years stole _

_ Give me something to dream of when I finally fall asleep _

_ And give me a reason to wake _

“I promise,” Pete says and Patrick wants to cry. “Patrick, I promise.”

~

Patrick opens the door for Pete without a word the next day, the eleventh day of February, and lets him wander in without explanation. A handful of days ago, he’d scold himself for acquiescing. 

Today, he scolds himself for answering the door at all.

Well. He scolds Pete, too.

“Look, I have a headache and a stomachache and didn’t get a second of sleep last night so if you even think of shoutin—”

“Patrick!” 

Patrick recoils, hands twitching to cover his ears. 

“Patrick, you’re gonna love this. Joe, this amazing dude, got a job at the theater so we have to go down and bug him into giving us tickets. Oh my god, we  _ have  _ to.”

Patrick swallows down a bout of nausea. “We really don’t.”

“But, Patrick,” Pete whines, walking in without an invitation. “Valentine’s is so soon.”

Valentine’s. It hits Patrick’s heart in a way it never has before.

“We’ll celebrate it later, then,” Patrick says, though his voice is faint. “I’m too tired to do any more cliches.”

“I’ve been told I’m a walking cliche so—” Pete turns to face Patrick at last, smile slipping from his face with ease. “Hey, are you okay?”

Patrick’s hands become fists though he’s not angry. His eyes shut though he’s wide awake.

It’s merely to hide the nonstop shaking, he thinks. It’s only to keep the lights from burning into his skull.

“Patrick.” Pete’s hand on his shoulder, once an electric spark, now feels dull and limp. Like Patrick’s remaining life force. Like his eagerness to give in to the hex. “We don’t need to go anywhere if you don’t feel well.”

Pete crowds closer to him, his fingers pressed into Patrick’s skin in what’s meant to be a careful, caressing grip— as if Patrick may run the second his hand leaves. True, Patrick considers an escape but the thought alone makes his head swim. He’s more than content to be a fish on Pete’s hook if it means he doesn’t need to move.

“I’m just feeling sick,” Patrick says, the half-truth more bitter than usual as he opens his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Pete’s eyes scan Patrick’s face— up and down, wrong and right— as if the smallest sheen of sweat could mean anything more than a common virus. As if he knows the truth. “At least I didn’t buy tickets, right? We can stay here and just watch movies. Does that sound better?”

“Don’t coddle me.” Patrick pulls his head back, lips pressed into a humiliated line. He’s not a child and he’s not hurt. He doesn’t need sympathy. “You don’t have to stay. I’m sure it’ll be dull for you anyway. I’m gonna fall asleep for most of the day.” A sick piece of the curse, he’s sure, practicing death days before it comes.

His stomach burns in a way it hasn’t in a long time. 

“It’s never boring around you,” Pete says, too honest for Patrick’s liking. He ruffles the younger boy’s hair softly before venturing into the living room. “We can watch some Disney movies? Classic true love and all that?”

Patrick’s blood curls in his veins, scratching against the walls of arteries as Pete speaks. 

“No,” he says, his voice steadier than his vision. “Save the… the true love shit for the actual Valentine’s Day, okay?” 

Pete’s eyebrow raises but he nods, all the same, frowning down at the remote. “Okay. Sure.”

A sigh of relief. A guilty pressure on his lungs. Patrick can’t quite breathe as he says, “thanks.”

Pete shrugs and, with a proud exclamation, turns on a rerun of some cooking show Patrick’s never seen before.

“Here! We can cuddle and make fun of their cooking together.” Without asking— because when has Pete ever asked?— Pete grabs Patrick’s wrist and pulls until they’re seated close together, hip-to-hip with Patrick half on the other boy’s lap. “Far enough from true love for you?”

Patrick pulls back from Pete, cheeks blazing. “Not nearly.” He presses into the couch and takes deep breaths.

Deep breaths.

He focuses on breathing as Pete puts his arm around him, as Pete pulls him close. He breathes as Pete’s own breaths fill the air, the softest sifting sound as air filtered in and out of those lungs. Patrick breathes as Pete makes every attempt to be a cliche.

Patrick breathes because he knows he only has the ability for so long.

Patrick breathes because he fears Pete may forget the sound of it someday.

Patrick breathes because it’s the only way to make sure he doesn’t scream.

~

As February twelfth seeps into existence, Patrick is still awake to witness the pale grey beginnings of dawn. It’s not something he’s had the chance to appreciate before, his mind always muddled with tense emotions whenever he’s left alone with his thoughts for too long. Deaths and fairy tales and happily ever afters would dance through his mind with all the brilliance of the sun shooting across the sky, his death as certain as light. 

Today, though, is different. 

Today, Pete hangs halfway out the window beside him, a hand pressed over Patrick’s as they gawk at the sunrise together. Pete had appeared late last night, his easy smile convincing Patrick’s parents that a sleepover would be the greatest idea. Patrick kept waiting for the punchline, the proof that Pete was insane for all he’s done, but the night had been calm and gentle. It had been stupid movies and popcorn tossed into hair, late-night snacks and light scolding from his parents for being too loud. Pete had leaned forward, just once, at the end of some sappy rom-com they were making fun of together, eyes locked on Patrick’s lips as if there was anything other than a curse there.

Patrick had turned, said something dumb about going to sleep, and Pete had blinked his way out of his daze. His cheeks were pink from the small rejection but not even that could compete with the rush of shame flooding Patrick’s blood. He was ashamed because, for only a second, he didn’t want to turn away.

Shame and rejection, though, fled when Pete shoved at his shoulder this morning and dragged him to the window. 

“It’s going to be so pretty,” he’d said as Patrick wrapped himself up in blankets. “Come on, I don’t want to miss it!”

Now, they share a gentle silence, Patrick’s heart jumping when Pete laces their fingers together.

Outside, the world is still. Everyone else asleep or unaware, everyone else uncaring of the love story— the tragedy— unfolding in some mundane house on some mundane street. Those who do pass by, early morning joggers and people off to work, barely hesitate as they cross the house.

For once, though, Patrick doesn’t feel mundane. He doesn’t feel like someone created to die before he lived, some boy who knows the afterlife is all that awaits. Lonely and forgotten, passing like a ship in the night. Today, all that bitterness fades because Pete, someone spectacular in every way, is holding onto him. And Patrick feels like a star that’s just begun to shine.

“What are you thinking about?” Pete asks in a hushed voice, dropping his head to rest on Patrick’s shoulder. It’s instinct now, reflex, to slouch a little to accommodate the new position, to release all tension because Pete deserves somewhere nice to put his head. 

He also deserves the truth.

If there was ever a time to tell Pete about his curse, now would be it. Alone in the shades of a new day, a promise painted is rose-colored hues, the words could sound poetic.  _ I’m dying and you can’t stop it _ — if Patrick says it like that, Pete must understand.

Or is Patrick only hoping he’d understand? Because, certainly, there would be questions and disbelief, the confusion of someone discovering that curses and magic are real. And Pete, this amazing man called Pete, would either leave before his heart can shatter or he’d stick around for the fallout, fighting for a happy ending until the very end.

Pete is a happy ending all in himself— in his smile, his eyes, his laugh. He’s the sunset at the end of a story, the kingdom brought back from ruins, and Patrick’s lucky to have ever been touched by his grace. But such a thing can’t last; a happy ending never includes a curse.

And, so. 

“I’m just happy,” Patrick says, ignoring how his voice shakes. “Thank you.”

Pete’s voice comes out in the shape of his grin. “You’re welcome. You know, I’m pretty happy, too.”

The sun finally breaks through the horizon. Patrick shuts his eyes as Pete gasps and praises.

He can’t bear to watch the beginning of another day.

~

The problem with Pete is that he’s perfect. He’s charming and charismatic, adorable and childish. He’s a genius with his Valentine’s Day plots and he’s lovely in his excitement. He’s handsome and he’s everything Patrick always wished he could have. Watching Pete exist is entrancing.

On February thirteenth, Pete proves that he can be all this and more.

He picks Patrick up later in the day; he doesn’t share his plans but his smile is convincing enough to have Patrick crawling inside the dirty car. The soft scent of lavender lingers in the air, proof that there had been some attempt to clean it, and Patrick laughs when Pete hurriedly tries to throw out the empty pop cans left in the back seat.

“Pete, it’s fine,” Patrick says, a hand on his shoulder. “It’s perfect.”

Pete smiles, albeit a bit bashfully. “Perfect.”

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

Patrick’s a fool for thinking he could ever have such a thing but with Pete the word— the world— feels precise.

Pete drives like the day will last for however long he says, taking his time and playing with the music as if fervent. He takes back roads and shortcuts, anything to throw Patrick’s guesses off.

“You know, it’s not actually Valentine’s Day, yet,” Patrick says, ignoring the pang in his chest when he thinks of what the next day holds. His heart has been thumping at irregular rhythms today, sometimes seeming to stop altogether, and his hands haven’t ceased their shaking since he woke up. Still, he swallows down his nausea and fears in favor of a soft smile in Pete’s direction. “So if this is as big as you’re making it seem, you’re just setting yourself up for failure tomorrow.”

Patrick doesn’t know who he’s being cruelest towards. Himself, for reminding himself of his curse? Or to Pete, for pretending they have a tomorrow at all?

Pete rolls his eyes but says nothing, reaching over towards Patrick as he takes another turn. His hand hovers over Patrick’s thigh, twitching in the air as if uncertain. 

With the smallest sigh and the softest smile, Patrick places his hand atop Pete’s and presses his touch into him. His palm is warm, fingers curling softly into the denim of Patrick’s jeans. The smile they share is calm, the splashing of waves against a distant shore, and Patrick can’t bring himself to protest the stirring in his chest.

It’s not long until the sky grows dim, the sun descending with the steady sureness of a sudden confession. Light casts upon the sky and ground with every shade of gold and fire and Patrick stares at the streaks with vision gone bleary from forcing his eyes open too long. He doesn’t want to miss any of this. He doesn’t want to risk blinking and wasting a second he’ll never see again.

At last, Pete pulls into a parking lot with a shuddering laugh on his lips as he teases about the empty spaces around them. The area seems abandoned but for the few kids making out in the edges of the lot, the parking meters ticking a countdown they don’t pay attention to anyway.

“Come on,” Pete says, nearly falling out of his car after parking. He tears open the back door, slinging a plastic grocery store bag into the crook of his elbow. “We’re gonna miss it.”

Patrick stutters out a laugh as he pulls free from the car. Pete presses quarters and nickels into the meter before them, glancing at the sign with something like worry in his eyes when he reads the time allotted to them. Just a few more hours until they’re towed away; just a few more hours until the night is gone.

None of that matters, though, when the meter flashes green and Pete takes Patrick’s wrist, breathless with anticipation as he pulls him along like a kite in the wind.

They run down Lake Shore Drive with the street on one side and the lake at the other, each colliding into Patrick with every gust against his chest and cheeks. He laughs with Pete as they chase the sun, his palms clammy and his heart racing in a way that has nothing to do with his fate. 

He catches on when he sees Promontory Point take shape before them, a daring extension into the icy greys of Lake Michigan’s waves. Car horns become laps of water against rock and the street fades as they descend into the trees and grass of the peninsula. 

“Pete,” Patrick cries, tripping over his feet and only standing from sheer force of will. “Pete, slow down!”

“No!” Pete says, glancing at Patrick red-stained cheeks and tempting lips. “I want you to see it!”

It, Patrick shakes his head if only to see what  _ it  _ is.

They stop at the edge of the land, rocks below them and water before them. Trees hide them from the rest of the world, curled inwards like a palm cupping them in the place Patrick can feel secure. Pete heaves for breath by Patrick, only Patrick’s gasps for air louder than his. Then, with a starlight smile and brightened eyes, Pete looks to the horizon before them and points.

“Look,” he says, a hushed tone filled with wonder and awe. “The  _ sun _ , Patrick,  _ look _ .”

And Patrick does.

It sets with all the gentleness of a pebble sunk into the sea, the brilliant star cascading across the waves with pinks and purples bleeding into the water and sky. Clouds crowd the horizon like a storm that’s brewing but even these are paint upon a canvas. The water seems to still as Patrick catches his breath. Here, he feels smaller than he ever has before, like the sun could set and bring his curse and everything would be okay. He could rest, he could fade, he could be this Sun and all its glory. Though he doesn’t know, Pete bringing him here is almost like whispering “when you go, it will be beautiful. When you go, it will be okay.”

But when Patrick looks at Pete, the skyline of the city behind him and the wind whipping through his jet-black hair, Pete’s watching him like he’s bigger than the universe itself.

“Do you like it?” He asks, eyes wide and smile emphatic. He leans towards Patrick, the corners of his lips twitching into a bigger grin with each helpless word. “It’s my favorite place, you know. I haven’t shown anyone else. Not that it’s a huge secret but… I don’t know. It’s different, watching it with someone else.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says, eyes scanning back out across the lake. Oranges and whites still dance above it, a shade as soft as sherbet and just as sweet, an orange creamsicle chilling the heat behind his eyes and staining the trembles in his hands. “It’s astounding.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Pete says, shoulders falling in relief. He waits, watching the sky a second more, and then turns to dig into the bag he’d dropped at his feet. “Here. Here, I got something for you.”

Patrick tries to laugh but sand seems to coat his throat, a smooth cool rock lodged between his lungs and lips.

“Oh my god, you didn’t. Pete, you  _ didn’t _ , you—” He pauses, cut short by the present held up proudly to his face. “Oh.”

A stuffed grey owl with the widest blue eyes stares at Patrick, fluffed up and sitting primly in Pete’s grasp.

“I did,” Pete says, almost bashful as he toys with one of the wings. “I did feel bad for teasing you so I bought it.”

Patrick struggles for something to say, for the words meant for his emotions. He wants to tell Pete of how no one’s done something like that before, thought of him so fondly or treated him so kind. He wants to tell Pete that the owl is lovely and the sunset is beautiful but his smile is better than the both combined. He wants to tell Pete that he used to think he’d spend his last night alone, afraid, and changing that was the best thing Pete’s ever done.

He wants to say everything but he knows better than that. With a shaky smile, he takes the owl and tries not to fall apart just yet.

“It was still there?” He asks, passing his shuddering off as laughter. “Poor guy.”

“Well, I mean,” Pete rubs the back of his neck, his grin twisting into some unsure. “I kinda bought it the day I met you? Once it sank in that you hadn’t had a Valentine’s, I decided to go back and get it. It was just supposed to be something small but then I realized I could make it so much bigger.”

Patrick stares at the owl in his hands, feels the fluff of it against his palms. It tickles, smiling up at him with a confession of love.

“You didn’t have to,” he says.

“But I did!” Pete says, drawing Patrick’s focus back up to that familiar face. The sun’s light swirls into bitter marmalade and jam, seeds shaped by the glisten of city windows behind him. “It started out as something fun but you’re… You’re amazing in every way. You’re lovely and you’re sassy and you’ve got all these things inside you that I can’t see yet. I’m sorry that no one’s ever done this for you before, that you were never treated the way you should be. You— You should have Valentine’s Day every day, if only because it makes you smile.”

“Pete…” Patrick says, eyes widening and hands suddenly going cold. “Pete, I—”

“I  _ like  _ you, Patrick,” Pete says, hands grabbing onto Patrick’s arms. “And I don’t want this to be over when Valentine’s is done.”

Patrick’s heart squeezes, vines wrapping around it and exploding with thorns. He tries to tug away but finds himself stuck in place. “I told you that it’s fine. I don’t care that I’ve never had… never had a proper Valentine’s.”

“But I do.” And that makes all the difference in the world. How can one boy have changed everything so quickly, come in and wrecked Patrick’s comfort with his fate? Slowly, Pete raises his thumb and brushes it beneath Patrick’s bottom lip. “Those lips that Love's own hand did make…”

Sonnet 145. The one Patrick loves for the twist of the first line alone.

He pulls away like a ship crashing onto the shore, like a castaway tossing himself onto the unforgiving sand. Pete’s hands sear where they touch but it doesn’t last for long, even the owl dropping away when Patrick turns with quivering breaths.

“I. I can’t,” he says, reaching to tug at his hair and hide from Pete, his breaths bursting through the air with trembling waves, as if the chaos from the lake had been emptied into his body. “I  _ can’t _ .”

“Can’t what?” Pete pushes, presses, pleads with hands landing on Patrick’s shoulders, digging in just enough that Patrick knows he wants him to turn around. And that gentle press is agony on his skin, is something he won’t have come morning. “Come on, don’t be dramatic, okay?”

“Dramatic?” And at this, Patrick does whirl around, a tornado made of curses and pain. He roars as he speaks and Pete steps back, eyes wide and hands raised as if to shove away the last few seconds. As if he can control the time at all. “You think I’m being dramatic? Christ, Pete, you’re the one dragging me around day after day like some sort of Valentine’s Day challenge. And for what? To make up for something that doesn’t matter to me anyway? Don’t you see how hard this is for me? Can’t you see what you’re doing?”

The words flow free as if from Patrick’s heart, the other side of love spilling bitterly from his lips. Pete’s eyes flash and he looks down at the owl between them, glaring back up only when the sun’s light begins to fade. 

“If you hate it so much, just tell me,” he says, his voice barely restrained. “If this has all been some stupid joke to you, just say it.”

“Is that what you think I’m getting at?” Patrick asks. “I love it but. But it doesn’t mean anything. It’s pointless.”

“ _ Pointless? _ ” Pete repeats, eyebrows raised and gaze flickering like a broken promise. Patrick stares uselessly into his eyes, waiting as the sky grows dark. “I’ve told you all I could and I’ve done what I thought was right. You’re special— Or I thought you were. And you’re just now saying it’s pointless?”

“That’s not what I’m saying, I just—  _ fuck _ , it’s not worth talking about right now. We don’t need to talk about it. Forget I said anything.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Pete says, reaching for Patrick and falling short. “I like you. I want to spend Valentine’s and more with you. But if you don’t want that…”

Patrick’s breath catches in his throat as Pete awaits an answer. The question, left unfinished, rings through Patrick’s mind like a migraine blooming beneath his skull. His entire being murmurs a rush of  _ yes,  _ of telling Pete that he wants nothing more. But everything within him roars with  _ no _ , with the fact that what he wants died nine years ago.

It’s not fair to Pete to pretend any differently.

“I can’t,” he says, at last. It’s a statement, a mumbled sound, but it rips through his throat as if he’d shouted. “I can’t.”

The sun fades away. Nothing but the rush of waves fills the air.

“Can’t,” Pete says, empty. Though he’s standing before Patrick, he sounds a lifetime away. “Not won’t. Not any sort of logical reason. You just can’t.”

He bends slowly, lifting the owl back up with a loose grip on one of the wings. The owl unfolds, still smiling silly at Patrick, the stomach etched with that _ I LOVE YOU _ print. Patrick aches with the need to move, to shake Pete out of his stunned expression, to take it back and allow himself one perfect night before it all ends. 

Pete, standing with the owl hanging at his side, steps away from Patrick. He looks back out across the water, a tension in his jaw that was never there before.

“It’s okay. But we should probably head back,” Pete says. His voice falls but doesn’t break, hanging on the edge of a cliff. It’s more control than Patrick has. He’s been free-falling this entire time but now he finally sees the ground coming up to meet him, every net cut away by his own words.

He follows Pete to the parking lot, their movements just a bit slower than before. As night begins to shroud them, Patrick’s overly aware of how empty his hand feels without Pete’s, how quiet it is without his voice. His tongue feels too big for his mouth, though, and every attempt at explanation is forced back down. He wonders, distantly, if that’s part of the curse. Are his lips unable to even speak the words?

“I’m sorry,” he says instead, tripping over his feet to catch up. He lifts a hand but drops it after barely brushing Pete’s shirt with his fingers. “If I could explain it, I would.”

“It’s fine,” Pete says, stopping at the edge of the parking lot. Every car is gone and they’re more alone than Patrick had been ready for. He can’t see Pete’s face from where he stands, a step behind him in the dark, but he hears more than enough in his voice. “It’s already dark. I should take you back before it gets too late.”

But when they reach the car, the meter’s run out and it watches them approach with an angry red sign. Pete shuffles away from it, muttering under his breath about how no one checks it, but the image of it prints behind Patrick’s eyes, the accusing symbol that the universe has sent.

Time’s run out and Pete can’t trick the world with false Valentine’s anymore. 

~

The weight of it all doesn’t land on Patrick until he’s walking up the driveway to his house, silence wrapped around his throat when Pete barely waves him goodbye. A rough grating feeling scratches beneath his eyes, a hot wet warmth that could very well be his soul.

He waits until Pete drives off but doesn’t go in just yet. Car lights fade into the distance, around a corner, and Patrick tells himself that what he did was right. Even though the stars and moon look down with a heaviness that has his knees buckling, his head falling, his shoulders drooping until he’s curled up on the porch, he tells himself it could be worse. Pete could have kissed him, could have taken the curse upon himself. He could have stayed a second longer, seen Patrick collapse and understood what true pain is. 

Knees pulled to his chest, Patrick stares at the street and the homes and the sky. He could have never met Pete, never known delight and love. He could have died without this memory. That has to count for something.

Still, as hours drag across his skin, he does the one thing he hasn’t done since he was nine years; he cries. He doesn’t recognize the tears at first, the splashes of something cool against his cheeks. But he can’t ignore the way his breath hitches and the way his chest heaves with ragged sounds, the way his lips tremble and his hands dig into his jeans. He feels like a child, crying out into the dark, but it’s worse because there’s no one here to wipe away the tears. There’s no one here who could understand.

“I don’t- I don’t want to,” he says through his gasps, his vision too blurred by tears to focus on any one star when he looks up. “Please don’t make me. I’m not okay with it anymore, I’m  _ not _ .”

No one responds and Patrick hates the flicker of hope in his chest that dies, proving he had any hope at all.

Still crying and still shaking, he shoves himself to his feet and turns to the door for no other reason than he feels like he should. It’s a miracle he can grab the handle tight enough to pull it open. It’s a wonder he’s able to see his parents waiting inside.

“Patrick,” his mother says. “You didn’t tell us you were leaving. Don’t you know how late it is? Don’t you know how worried we were?”

It’s not Patrick’s fault that she’ll have to mourn him tomorrow but her words still strike him in the chest with a guilty blow.

“You left your phone here and just ran off. Can’t you imagine how— Hey,” his dad cuts off stepping closer once he catches sight of Patrick’s blotchy and tear-stained face. His scolding eyes freeze over. “Did something happen? What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” Patrick says, his mind dizzy as breath comes quicker than it should. Still, his parents stare as if he hadn’t spoken at all and he wonders if the knot in his throat has stolen his voice. “Everything’s wrong.”

Why does the clock behind them have to be so big, so clear? Can’t he be given the chance to forget the time and to slip away with the unexpected surprise he deserves? He’s been counting down his life for years— couldn’t he lose track of just a couple minutes?

It’s not worth asking. Behind his parents, the clock stares proudly at him with the time at 11:59 p.m.

He imagines he can feel his heart preparing to stop, slowing and murmuring with a terrible sloshing sound. His parents mutter to each other about him now, trying to understand his answer, but something like a roar of thunder blurs their voices out. He stumbles back, his hip hitting the door handle; he doesn’t feel a thing. 

The second-hand ticks closer to the twelve and Patrick is filled with the sudden sensation of simply waiting to die. 

Ten seconds left. He thinks of his mother and how she’d watch stupid cartoons with him whenever he was sick. He thinks of his father and how he’d looked so proud when Patrick first wrapped his hand around an old guitar, how he’d acted like Patrick’s ability to play a chord was as extraordinary as being able to play a song.

Five seconds left. He thinks of Pete and that stupid stuffed owl he bought. He thinks of sunrises and fondue and silly texts that made him feel loved. He thinks of proposals in the strangest of place and how, just once, someone gave him a reason to enjoy the holiday that left him cursed.

He drags his eyes away. He looks at the fear-stained faces of his parents and swallows around the boulder-sized lump in his throat, hoping that these words are clear.

“I love you two so much. I don’t think I said that enough,” he says, his words like pebbles slipping and crashing into the floor. “I’m sorry.”

One second left.

He closes his eyes and thinks of sunsets.

~

_ Pete _

It takes an hour or so of ranting to one of his friends for Pete to calm down. Even then, his eyes still sting and his heart still twists whenever he thinks of Patrick.

Ugh. Patrick

“It’s just not fair,” Pete says to Joe on the phone, sounding all at once tired as he collapses back onto the bed. Joe makes a small noise that sounds more like static, his voice distracted. Apparently, he’s waiting for his cousin to finish giving birth in some hospital. Why he has to be there, Pete has no idea. “I thought I did everything right. Like. Everything. And I never do anything right.”

“Yeah, true,” Joe says. Pete rolls his eyes though he knows Joe can’t see.

“No, but, seriously, dude. He’s perfect. How often do you meet someone that perfect?” Pete shouldn’t be talking about this still, shouldn’t be leading himself back into tears and heartbreak. But heartbreak’s like a bruise and the best way to deal with its existence is to poke at it and wonder how it got there. “I know you don’t like guys but… His eyes, Joe. There was always something just underneath the surface— something like a secret but sadder than that. He said he never had a Valentine’s and I thought maybe that was why he always looked a bit hurt, like he was waiting for someone to say it was a joke, but I don’t think it was. I think it was something more, like he was terrified. How do you deal with someone who’s afraid of being loved?”

“Woah, woah, woah, wait.” Joe takes a dramatic pause before continuing. “You love him? Didn’t you, like, just meet him?”

“I don’t expect you to understand love at first sight,” Pete mutters, turning his cheek so the phone is squished between his face and his pillow. “Seriously, though, what do I do? I did every single romantic cliche and he still couldn’t bring himself to give it a try.”

“He gave a few days, isn’t that enough?” Joe asks. “There’ll be more people for you to woo, Prince Charming.”

“Yeah, but none of them will be him.” Pete sighs again, swallowing a few times to keep his voice from shaking the way it so clearly wants to. “I just wanted a happy ending.”

“Well, maybe you can still get it.”

“Sure. Whatever. It doesn’t matter, I guess.” It’s not Pete’s first heartbreak but it does feel like the most important, like a disease in his heart with no cure. “How are things over there, then?”

“Oh, you know. Full of coughing kids and the lovely scent of hand sanitizer,” he says in a chipper voice. “I’m thinking of— Wait.”

Joe’s cut off by a sudden rush of commotion, of people shouting and chaos erupting. Pete can’t hear much through the phone but he listens intently, chairs scraping and nurses asking parents to calm down.

_ “But he’s my son _ .” A woman’s voice cries from the distance. Pete doesn’t know her but his heart aches at the thought of what must be going on.  _ “Tell me you can save my son.” _

The voices continue in a more hushed manner, people muttering over the cacophony with questions and irritations of their own. Some shout about some kid getting attention before they do and others wonder aloud about what they just witnessed.

Over it all, Joe cuts back in with a hesitant voice.

“Hey, uh, that kid you liked,” he asks, “did he have red hair and a scar across his eyebrow?”

Pete’s stomach drops. His body suddenly goes numb.

“Yeah,” he says. “Why?”

“Because.” Joe speaks slowly, like he’s afraid of Pete’s response. “A Patrick Stump was just brought into the ER. He was unconscious. It doesn’t look good.”

Before Joe’s done, Pete’s heart slams to a stop, all noise outside his own racing mind fading away.

Patrick’s in the hospital.

Pete throws himself from the bed and starts to run.

~

Joe fills him in when Pete shows up, hands wringing together as he explains with wide eyes what he saw.

“His parents just came in, carrying him,” Joe says. “He was unconscious and it looked really bad. Like, he was limp and he didn’t seem to be breathing and they said he just fell and they couldn’t wake him back up. They took him back a while ago.”

Pete wishes he could have gotten here faster, that he could have been here when it happened. 

He should have stayed with Patrick from the beginning, should have known that something was wrong when Patrick couldn’t explain why they couldn’t share today. Did he know that something like this would happen? Or was it a simple trick of the universe; there’s no possible way for Pete to prove his love to Patrick now.

Pete tries not to pin much credence into the idea that has anything to do with him but he can’t help the pit of circling fear and regret eating through his guts. He can’t breathe, can’t respond, and when he blinks he only sees the thought of Patrick lifeless and collapsed.

He’s going to be sick, he’s sure.

“Are you sure it was—” He stops, spotting familiar figures in the hall. David. Patricia. They’re mumbling with heads bent close together, worried hands holding onto one another and tears decorating eyelashes. Pete brushes aside the rest of his words and makes for them. “Mr. and Mrs. Stump! Hey!”

They turn, shocked, but it fades easily back into fear and concern when they recognize him.

“Peter,” Patricia says, still clinging to her husband and speaking in hushed tones. “What are you- How-?”

“A friend was here. He said he might have seen—” He stops, shaking his head. He knows better than to jinx fate by offering Patrick’s name in such a place of despair. “Is he okay? Do you know what happened?  _ Can I see him?” _

The two blink quickly, eyes tinted pink and red as they shrug strangely and try to speak without falling apart.

“They said it’s just like he’s sleeping. Like he’s sleeping and can’t wake up,” David says, the words sounding heavy on his tongue. “They did tests and it’s all mostly normal but… but they said it’s like his heart is slowing down. They don’t know why but. But it’s just slowing down.”

Pete feels like ice as the words settle in, the thought that it’s Patrick’s heart that’s failing him. He has questions, a thousand questions, but none of them matter except: “Can I see him?”

He doesn’t think they’re supposed to let him do this but they nod anyway, saying that Patrick would like it if Pete did. Patricia keeps a motherly hand on his shoulder and leads him to Patrick’s room, warning him that it might hurt to see.

And, though he was warned, Pete understands what she means when he steps in.

Patrick’s small in the hospital bed, pale and pink with machines hooked to his body. Something to check his pulse and something to check his breath and many more to make sure he’s still alive.

As Pete walks in, slow and dreamlike, he notes how Patrick’s chest is barely fluttering. He notes how hollow he looks when his eyes are shut. 

“They said it can be a common thing,” Patricia says, still in the doorway. “That… That lots of people get low heart rates and just pass out.”

But Pete can hear how scared she is, how that hope is all she has. He thinks back to David’s words—  _ it’s just slowing down—  _ and he thinks of how that just doesn’t happen at all.

Pete’s determination to see Patrick is hampered by the sudden weakness in his knees, the way he nearly collapses before making it to the chair by the side of the bed. He wants to run away; he wants to never leave. 

He takes Patrick’s hand, gently as if it could break, and tries not to see the irregular stutters in the heart monitor on the other side.

“He’s so strong,” Patricia says, sounding as if she’s fighting to convince herself. “He’s… He’s going to be okay, it’s not a big deal.”

“He’ll wake up,” David says, more certain than her though his voice is rough with unshed tears. “The doctors will figure this out and he’ll wake up.”

Pete keeps silent, running his thumb over the back of Patrick’s hand. Patrick’s so cold, so still. He’s never been like that before and the sensation keeps Pete from offering any hopeful words he knows he won’t mean.

After a moment, a nurse comes in. She starts at the sight of Pete but, after a look at Patrick’s parents, she crosses the room. Pete doesn’t watch but he can hear her checking the machines and charts, feeling for a pulse and frowning to herself.

“Mr. and Mrs. Stumph,” she says, turning back towards his parents, the clipboard held close to her chest. Though professional, her voice is stronger than it needs to be, something trying to salvage a mess she knows will come. “I suggest you wait in the hall. I’m going to get the doctor and she’ll explain things to you.”

There’s some hesitation, some reluctance, but then Pete is alone with Patrick.

He’s alone.

Pete could shut his eyes but he doesn’t, too afraid to lose a second of Patrick before him. 

“Is this what you were talking about? When you said you couldn’t have Valentine’s this year? Why wouldn’t you just tell me?” Pete asks in a low persistent tone. He licks his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. “They’re right, you know. You’re going to wake up. I know you will.”

Outside, Pete hears the murmured discussion of a doctor and Patrick’s parents. Outside, he hears Patricia choke on a desperate wail.

Outside, they’ve discussed Patrick’s fate but, in here, Pete refuses to acknowledge what it is.

In the mixed lights of the hospital room— the stars and moon and lightbulbs above— Pete feels as if he’s before a sun that can neither rise or set. Patrick is something brilliant, even in his stillness, and Pete would be a fool to pretend that he can be so easily snuffed out. 

“I think I love you, Patrick,” Pete says, holding Patrick’s hand with both of his own; though he trembles and his eyes grow damp, he smiles. “How am I supposed to tell you that if you won’t wake up?”

He lifts his hand only to wipe his eyes. He’s always been a fool for fairytale loves and he refuses to give up on it now. Patrick might not be a damsel in distress— lord knows he’s too proud for such a title— but he is fair and he is good. He’s Pete’s true love, he’s sure.

“I love everything I know about you and everything I’ve yet to know. I love how you like silly Valentine’s stuffed animals and how you cover everything up with a joke. I love how you let your guard down around me and how you didn’t believe I’d actually give you the Valentine’s days you deserve,” Pete says. “I love how you’re allergic to flowers and how you freak out over chocolate spilled on your carpet. I love how you hate mornings. I love how you taught yourself Shakespeare.”

The sonnet from before echoes through Pete’s mind, the one like he spoke before it all fell apart.

_ Those lips that Love’s own hand did make… _

“I have no right to do this; you have every right to be upset if you hate it,” Pete says, standing from the chair and leaning over the bed. “But I believe in love at first sight and, you know what? I think you believe in it, too.”

Pete lowers slowly and fits his lips to Patrick’s mouth, testing the sensation of their lips brushing. It’s gentle but it’s electric, lightning and rain all at once as Pete presses further into the kiss, brushes his knuckles down Patrick’s jaw and neck. Patrick tastes like fireworks, like magic better left untouched. Though it lasts only a second, he’s overwhelming and Pete yearns to kiss him deeper, to hold him closer, to imprint every detail of this moment through sheer will alone.

The machines connected to Patrick seem to scream though it can’t be louder than a voice. Pete pulls back, afraid and panicked. He pulls away, certain he’s done something wrong.

A hand wraps around his neck; a hand tangles in his hair.

He only sees the wonderful blue of Patrick’s eyes before he’s pulled back down.

Patrick’s warm now, breathing hot and deep against Pete’s lips as he responds to the touch this time. They piece together like they were meant to be, like every moment’s been leading up to this. It’s sloppy and awkward at first, Patrick’s mouth slipping to graze Pete’s jaw, but it’s perfect and it springs to life like the sun cresting the horizon.

“For the record, I do believe in love at first sight,” Patrick says when they pull apart, watching Pete’s face for a reaction. “But I never thought I had a right to true love’s kiss, too.”

Pete doesn’t know what he means by that, doesn’t understand the full depth of the humor in Patrick’s eyes. But he does understand when Patrick leans back up for him, when he purses his lips just so and begins to shut his eyes. Patrick’s hands are gentler around Pete’s neck, not as urgent as they had been mere moments before, and this kiss is neater than the last. Pete doesn’t taste the fireworks from before but he can feel Patrick’s lack of experience, can read that he’s never had a kiss before, and his heart can't understand the thought— he’s never had a Valentine’s, he’s never had a kiss. The concept causes his head to spin but he swears that he’ll make it up to Patrick on the universe’s behalf. He’ll grant him every kiss he never had.

Outside the window, it’s still too dark to properly call it morning. Outside, stars gasp at the scene and the moon burns with a light like day. But tonight is more than a dream and it’s more than a secret.

It’s a happy ending.

And Patrick’s smile is the happiest thing of all.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are appreciated, my tumblr is folie-aplusieurs


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